


Once Upon a Desecration

by artistocrazy



Series: Aushun Week 2020 [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Hinted Corpse Desecration, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24808753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistocrazy/pseuds/artistocrazy
Summary: Aushun Week 2020.Day 5: Soulmates.Context: Erzsébet is an inexperienced necromancer with lots of potential but little focused training (compared to her experience as a guard). Roderich is a prince who was under a sleeping enchantment and could only be woken up by his soulmate’s doing. Neither one of them is aware of this, however, and Erzsébet can only deduce she’s accidentally broke into and desecrated his grave (which is as traumatic to a corpse as you might think). The two are traveling through the surrounding forrest, initially, to return him home and ensure he remains safe. However, there are forces outside, suspicious and aware of the prince’s disappearance, that wish to see Roderich entombed once more.
Relationships: Austria/Hungary (Hetalia)
Series: Aushun Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790344
Kudos: 4





	Once Upon a Desecration

**Author's Note:**

> (Please bare with me - I’m trying something outside of my comfort zone here - thank you for giving this a chance!)

Erzsébet strung the intruder up by the collar, pressing his back against the bark of the oak to keep him steady. It was to her advantage that the encounter was happening in the early morning - much too early (or late, maybe) for the creature to be scampering about causing havoc. He certainly didn’t look like he wanted to stay. 

“Alright. Talk,” she snarled, adjusting her hold on his shirt. “Who are you?”

“Ooh, I’m shaking,” the intruder taunted back, inconvenienced and unamused, “the untrained necromancer is going to kill me.”

That stung. Specifically to know news traveled so fast among magic folk. So fast to extend to the creatures. Especially him - who knew her latest blunder would spread so far when they’d barely left the forest.

“I’m not making the same mistake over you,” Erzsébet sneered. “You see, I’m a swordsman first” she explained, brandishing her pocket knife up to his neck and staring him down with dagger-like green eyes. They could have glowed underneath all of that wild hair, for all the stranger cared. “Trained enough to know how to let you live, not like me, and never be able to do anything about it.”

“What is going on out here?” a voice in the distance asked, with a slight shake. Probably upon being awakened, the little prince had plucked up the courage to grab his glasses, follow the sound of the tussle, and visibly recoiled at this show of brutality. Despite the obvious fear in him, Roderich pushed on, perhaps indulging more of his irritation at being woken up at the worst of times. They may have been in the wilderness, but they were living beings after all - they could at least speak like civilized creatures. “Good heavens! What is the meaning of this? Who is thi-ugh-who are you? What do you want?”

“Umm, highness?” Erzsébet spoke with a sing-song voice through gritted teeth. “Working on that. Kind of busy here.”

Still admittedly aghast at the sight, the little prince marched (or maybe moreso glided in that sleeping tunic) down to stand beside this makeshift knight and attempted to have some kind of regal influence yet again. “Good God, has he threatened you? Why are you holding him like that?”

“He poses an excellent question,” the intruder backed up the little prince’s claim. “This is a bit of a compromising position for your prince to catch you in.”

“He’s _not_ my prince,” Erzsébet corrected the intruder harshly. “I just woke him up. That’s all.”

The intruder’s red eyes lit up for a moment in realization, and his mouth opened up in a smile to reveal his pronounced canines. “Oh! So _you’re_ the corp-“

“ _Don’t!”_ Roderich retaliated at a much louder level than he seemed capable of to the intruder, before the prince caught himself and reverted back to the level-headed, pale diplomat that made more sense.“Excuse me, I‘m... still in the process of coming to terms with... _that,_ and would appreciate it, if you would refrain from calling me such things for the time being.”

“Your first time, huh?” The intruder sympathized, looking the foppish man over. “I‘d believe it - not terribly challenging to bring back someone recent. In fact, you don’t look like you’ve _ever_ had a scratch on you. No decay, no festering, not even maggo-“

“ _And please spare me details!”_ The little prince rose his voice yet again, looking less elegant with those nostrils flaring and his complexion reddening yet again. “ _I do not wish to dwell on it!_ ”

“Yeesh! Fine!” the intruder waved off the mistake. It really must have been his first revival, if he was going to be this sensitive about it. “Just breathe. No need to wake the whole forest. Some of us are trying to get some sleep.”

“What are you doing here?” Erzsébet shook the intruder for a moment, jolting him back to the present. “Who sent you?”

“Say, majesty,” the intruder looked over at the prince, not giving Erzsébet any emotional satisfaction or recognition. “Could you get your zmeu here to try asking me nicely?”

“This _is_ me asking nicely,” the necromancer pressed on through gritted teeth, pulling tighter against his collar.

Rolling his eyes and nearly rolling his neck down the freed direction to face her, the intruder jut out his chin a little. “Does the phrase ‘walk the bear’ mean anything to you?”

“Now, now, put him down. I’m sure he can be reasoned with,” the prince grumbled, attempting to separate the two and serve as a voice of reason. “Sir, do you promise not to run away, if we promise not to hurt you?”

“Why would you proposition him something like that?” Erzsébet fumed over her shoulder, in no way seeing the reason behind such a move. “Shouldn’t we figure out why he’s been lurking around here first?”

“Do you expect to find anything out stringing him up by the collar in this way?” the prince huffed, gesturing to their display. “What does it matter, if he stays or if he goes? We won’t know his intent until the option is presented. Sir, do you promise not to run and to speak with us?”

The intruder sneered down in disgust, taking a little more pleasure in causing an upset. “Will you send the bear here after me, if I do?”

“We do not have to resort to name-calling,” the prince reprimanded coldly, while trying to discretely loosen a sudden tightness in his jaw. “We are all civilized adults here, or at least I would _hope_ so. I will ask that Erzsébet not pursue you upon release, though my hope is there will be no _need_ for her to do so. Now, are we in agreement?”

Taking a moment to look over at the prince and then back at each other, both parties began to separate. Erzsébet pocketed her knife while maintaining her glare and dropped the intruder abruptly, causing him to land on his tailbone.

The young prince glared over at the necromancer, who simply shrugged. “What? He has two legs. He can catch himself.”

The prince pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head before looking back up. “Would you mind telling us your name, Sir?”

“His name is Vladimir.”

“I was asking him,” the prince looked sternly over to his counterpart, before addressing the pair. “Are you two already acquainted?”

“We’ve met,” Erzsébet put it politely, with a shallow grin. “He’s also magical.”

“But we are _not_ acquainted,” Vladimir added on, still brushing himself off and looking over his shoulder at Erzsébet in revulsion. However, very shortly after he looked back at the prince with intrigue. “At least, you and _I_ are not, until you tell me your name.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Erzsébet warned the prince, uncrossing her arms to shoo the attempt away. “We want information _from_ him. Not the other way around.”

“Well, I won’t share anything else, if you won’t,” Vladimir countered, crossing his arms and turning away. “So are we done here?”

“Not quite,” the prince continued on calmly, circling his way in front of Vlad. “Why _are_ you so quick to leave, anyway? Beyond my name, what information are you really after? Maybe we could work something out.”

“Are you trying to get us both killed?” the necromancer threw her hands up as she lashed out. “I didn’t sign up for that, and I’m little use to you dead.”

“Just trust me on this,” the prince put up a dismissive hand, looking at his counterpart with a strategic glint in his eyes. “There may not be any reason to fight.”

“Oh, there’s _always_ a reason to fight with her. Trust me,” Vladimir interrupted, happy to take jabs at the necromancer where he could. “It’s a miracle you’ve stayed with her this long. Unless, maybe, she’s holding you against your will,” he theorized, shrugging and extending a hand to the prince, who was peering back and forth at him and the ground. “I can help you with that.”

Before Erzsébet could brush off the obvious choice Roderich would make to separate them and throw out some quip about being stuck against her will with some eccentric insisting on not being alone, the prince had already shook his head while cleaning his glasses. “There is no need for that, thank you. I’m quite alright where I am.” 

Erzsébet blinked a few times, processing what she’d heard and swallowing the snide remark. Her disbelief only compounded when the prince peered back up at Vladimir over his glasses, with those piercing, stormy eyes, and spoke seriously. “Now what is it that you want with me?”

Upon noticing their very peculiar shade, Vladimir paid closer attention to the energy brought on by that stare, and just about the prince in general. For a seemingly fresh corpse, something was off - something was missing. “What?”

“Well, you already know her and you knew _of_ me,” the prince reasoned, straightening up his appearance as he went. “Your interest clearly lies with me, if you’re making it a point to learn about me and to separate us - specifically to separate me from her, from what I gather.”

Still trying to figure some things out while the prince took pride in his deductions, Vladimir shook his head while looking back incredulously at him. “You’re nuts.” The intruder tried turning away to wander off - before Erzsébet blocked his path, anyway. Come to think of it, Erzsébet’s energy seemed a little off as well, just in connection with her tagalong corpse.

“Am I?” The prince inquired with a raised brow, coaxing Vladimir to look back, then between them, to form a deduction of his own. One he had to test.

Vladimir masked his plotting with a scoff at the necromancer. “You’d have to be, to choose _her_ company. Why do you keep following her around, anyway? Just because she woke you up, it doesn’t mean you owe her a life debt or anything. Besides, it was a blunder, wasn’t it? A blunder by a novice necromancer without the training to know how to reverse it. She didn’t intend to wake you.”

“So what, if I didn’t?” the necromancer’s patience with their intruder had waned with each insult. She was sure she could stick it out for herself, but based on the glassy look in the princes’ eyes, it was clear there was some personal hurt surfacing from those statements. ”He’s here now, and I’d probably be horrified to be revived in _my_ tomb and left to figure everything out on my own. I don’t want to think of this as some mistake, and I definitely don’t want that to be because of him! He‘s done nothing wrong!”

So it seemed Erzsébet was clearly impacted by their encounter - one Vladimir was growing confident in being fake - and so he could only confirm it by testing the teary-eyed prince’s resolve. He really had to lay it on thick - not that it would be hard. 

“Right, who am I to place any blame on him? It’s not _his_ fault some novice stumbled upon him and messed up his eternity.” He kept going, starting to notice Erzsébet’s faltering. He found the buttons he had to keep pressing. It was the only way to really tell.

“It’s not _his_ fault you have enough power to mistakenly revive him, but not enough to give him some sense of peace. Who knows? Maybe you did try to kill him, until you figured out the only way you could actually do it wasn’t through magic.” Despite standing her ground, the necromancer’s bottom lip started to tremble over such a torturous thought that she just didn’t know how to respond - the guilt of her misstep seemed to dangle over her head like a crate supported by a fraying rope. 

Vlad saw all of those worries and doubts swarming in her, causing her front to risk caving in but overwhelming her from lashing out. 

“It’s not _his_ fault that with all of your boasting about being so well-trained and disciplined that it means nothing when you’re this much of a magical failure.”

“Hey!” the voice broke through Vladimir’s taunts, and caused both him and Erzsébet to look back at the prince. “That is quite enough!” Roderich scolded, positioning himself between the pair. “I asked that we remain civil, and you have simply taken it too far. I know you’re not acquainted, but I will not tolerate this blatant antagonism. Now leave her alone!”

Erzsébet wasn’t sure how to react upon working past her shock. She knew Roderich prided himself on being chivalrous, but she didn’t think he’d do something this stupid. Despite her instinct to find her way forward, she was at pause - specifically watching her potential opponent at pause, studying the pair.

“Hmph,” Vlad observed, giving everyone a moment to understand what had just happened and who stepped in front of whom. “You really thought you had to tell me this from here, without your guard in front to protect you? You almost had me fooled. I thought you were smarter than that.” 

“You won’t hurt me,” Roderich bolstered his stance, planting his feet down and just barely standing taller than the intruder hinting at threats. “You need me, for whatever reason. I know that. But I won’t just stand there and let you keep hurting her, if I can help it. I never agreed to that.”

Just from the sound of those statements, Vlad could instantly catch on that this reaction went beyond their little agreement. There were definitely other forces tied into this, and he should have caught onto that earlier while being stared at with violet eyes that were clearly an after effect of the hex he was under.

“You’re not invincible, you know,” Vladimir grinned with a borderline sinister air about him. “Even if she actually _did_ revive you, you wouldn’t be. She couldn’t hope to save you, if something happened.”

“You’re bluffing. I’d wager you’re just jealous she brought me back without the slightest effort,” the prince pressed on. “That _she_ had the power to revive me by accident and do it flawlessly, no less.”

“I know she didn’t, because I can tell just by being around the two of you long enough she didn’t do it. That’s why she can’t reverse it. You were never dead.”

Before the prince could reach forward and mirror the old tactic they had used on first encountering the intruder, this time to cease Vladimir’s laughter, the intruder spun around and changed himself into a bat under a cloud of smoke, fluttering off before calling back. “Ne vedem mai târziu, păsări de dragoste!”

Erzsébet felt herself boiling with a rage that had no release - not if they really had to keep themselves secret. She wanted so badly to find a way to bring that bat down, but she just stood with a swirl of too many emotions at a time. With not much left she could think to do, she tried to brush it off and walk away. 

That is, until she realized Roderich wasn’t moving. Not as though he was frozen - the prince was fixated on watching the bat fly off into the sky. The only way she could even tell was the deeper breaths he was taking and the limpness in his limbs.

For a moment, she thought back to that surreal moment where he stood between her and Vladimir - a bizarre picture of bravery on the prince’s part that was so out of place. For heaven’s sake, she dragged him away from the tower while he was having a panic attack over being a corpse. She wasn’t sure how to reconcile such a change in him, least of all when it involved defending her, of all people.

Erzsébet was unsure, however, until Roderich turned back around to reveal a harrowed expression on his face. “I just bluffed with my life in front of a vampire, didn’t I?”

Sensing things were returning to normal, Erzsébet shook her head and remembered just who it was she was dealing with. “No. Vlad’s not a vampire. He just likes their aesthetic.”

“Oh, that’s just perfect,” he nodded and commented in an airy way, taking a moment to steady his breathing. Within a moment, Roderich bent over, trying to find some support in his knees and hoping they wouldn’t give out from that dizzying feeling.

“Highness!” Erzsébet swept herself under him, trying to establish eye contact and latch onto his elbows to keep him from toppling over. “Please, let me take you back to the camp.”

With a nod, Roderich gave into being guided back. Barely thinking it over and without any kind of flinch from her counterpart, Erzsébet slipped one arm under to cradle his legs and stood up to carry him. As they approached their fire pit, the necromancer guided him onto a nearby stump.

“I’m sor-“

“Nem,” Erzsébet silenced him, gathering a couple of apples and potatoes for breakfast. “There’s no need for that. If I were you, my nerves would be completely shot.”

After chewing in awkward silence for the moment, the necromancer got them talking again. “That was pretty gutsy, what you did.”

“No,” the prince sulked, reflecting on his actions like how he’d imagine his advisors might, “it was reckless and stupid and in poor form for a negotiation.”

Erzsébet looked over at him dryly. “I said it took guts - not brains. Say, what _was_ that about anyway? I’ve never seen you that upset before, and from what I’ve seen the past few days out here that’s saying a lot.”

“I really wish I knew,” the prince shrugged, hating to be at a loss for words over the standoff. “I want to believe there was strategy behind what I did, but... but how what that supposed to convince him to tell us anything? We’ve learned _nothing_ from him, and it’s all because of me.”

“That was _not_ nothing,” the necromancer corrected him, coaxing the prince’s head out of his hands. “He may have had a point at the end.”

“In what regard?” Roderich looked back up, with heightened concern. “You clearly dislike each other, and he clearly derived some pleasure out of undermining you. How are you sure he wasn’t bluffing about that last bit?”

For the moment, Erzsébet appreciated the misplaced faith her counterpart had in her, but she slumped down onto the opposite stump and looked to the ground. “Well, I still don’t know how I woke you beyond just doing it, and I... well, I can barely think to try to un-do it. That’s not fair to you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The prince gazed over at Erzsébet, hoping to empathize as he spoke. “Well, I could say the same for you, too.”

The pair locked eyes briefly, confused at why either of them would say such a thing and why it hurt. Trying to be sensible, Roderich felt it best to get to the heart of their new “whys”.

“But, if what he said was actually true,” he theorized, looking towards their fire pit, “and if I might not have been dead... why else would I have appeared dead? What else could have happened to me?”

It was a challenge enough to see this man agonize over what may very well have been an old life before he woke up. It was a different challenge to watch him agonize over that life, of his disappearance, being somewhat intentional. It made the necromancer lose some of her appetite.

The prince thought maybe she could help him find answers - she was so sure before. She was his only guide out here this whole time, and it unsettled him that not even she could explain this. “Have you really nothing to add?”

“I don’t know, okay?” The necromancer answered abruptly. “How am I supposed to know what else happened, if it might not even be _my_ magic?”

Roderich scoffed up at her, struggling to hide his irritation. “Have you no way to tell?”

“It _seemed_ pretty simple to me,” Erzsébet shot back, beginning to pace. “I accidentally disturbed your tomb and you wake up. It’s sort of a no-brainer.”

“Well, why haven’t you thought to check?” the prince called her out, sitting up straighter and giving into his frustration at yet again not knowing up from down. “You can’t sense your own magic?”

She turned back around quickly, her hair flinging as she went off. “I think we’ve established I’m not that good at this, okay? I don’t know if I want to look into it.”

“Why ever not?” Roderich stood up, this time pursuing her as she walked away. “Considering I still dwell in this body, I’d like to know if you had a hand in that.”

“You don’t get it,” Erzsébet turned back again, but rather than be pressured with frustration she was led to speak from grief. “I don’t want to dig into it because I don’t want to have any kind of hand in reversing this! Not until I meet with a master. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to accidentally kill you, alright?” she admitted, giving into the swarm inside of her and seating herself on a log. She looked ready to tear her hair out, with the way she grabbed it’s roots and hunched over. “I feel bad enough that I maybe messed up and brought you back here, but I’m not going to do something like that again with your life on the line!”

Roderich paused, taking in this top-class warrior struggling even there not to melt into a puddle. It was as puzzling to him as it was oddly moving. 

“Why does it matter?” he asked softly.

“What?”

“Why does my life matter to you?” the prince asked again, seating himself beside her. “Why does it matter to you, if you may have had no hand in reviving me? I don’t understand. Wouldn’t this serve as some form of relief? I thought I was just a nuisance in your eyes.”

“Well,” she cleared her face with the back of her sleeve, “you haven’t been easy to deal with all of the time, but I wouldn’t be either, in your shoes. I don’t know,” she shrugged, shutting her eyes. “I just... I guess I felt drawn to you and just... assumed. It had to be something _I_ did. It would only make sense for it to feel, well ... to feel this personal, right? Ugh, it just sounds crazy, saying it out loud.”

“It’s... not that crazy. Though who am I to judge, really? ... Maybe I was so convinced Vladimir was bluffing because... because I felt that draw, too. Unlike anything I’ve felt towards someone.”

Upon realizing his hand had started to reach for hers, he withdrew it and tried to dive back into explaining this phenomenon. “It has to be an enchantment, of some kind. I don’t know _how_ , but I know it _must_ be. I don’t know how else to explain this.”

The necromancer shrugged, leaning her head in one hand. “Trauma, maybe?” 

He was hunched over, staring across the way in introspection that lasted for maybe a moment. “Perhaps... but what about you?” he turned back, concern lacing his tone. “Has this... gone so far as to traumatize you?”

“That’s part of the problem,” the necromancer returned the look again. “I don’t know if I can really say that. I don’t know _what_ this could be.”

“Perhaps we need to work on getting someone else involved in the conversation,” Roderich mused, slowly getting taken with the idea. “We’ll find you a teacher first. They can examine us both, see whatever it is that’s going on. Then we’ll know.”

“What about returning home?” Erzsébet questioned the plan, returning to her feet again. “Your people? Your subjects?”

“As far as I know, they think I’m still laying in the tower. What would it matter to them, if I return later than we first expected?“

“You’re sure?”

“Whatever it is, it’s affecting us both. Might as well try to figure it out together.”


End file.
